Railway’s inability to respond to emerging realities in meeting the suburban rail services have to be addressed. Bangalore City urgently needs multiple modes of mass transit system to address the demand for better public transport network catering to at least 60-70 % of its 10 Million populations. Good intentions of the current railway minister cannot be faulted at this time. It will take some time to start the full fledge suburban rail services. In the meantime, with small investment works like halt stations and last mile connectivity can be taken up to motivate more and more people to use the existing long and short distance trains that runs from/to the city.

Given the political priorities and financial status, railways is not in position to address the non-priority projects like building new suburban halt stations around Bangalore. Therefore help from private sector with necessary funding and investment becomes the most viable option. The proposal here is to attract and motivate the private sector to come forward and fund the works for building new suburban rail halt stations. This would allow the SWR to introduce halts at these new locations for both the incoming and outgoing trains. Once these halts materialize, it will allow residents in the catchment to use the trains for daily commute needs. Once more and more people start patronizing the daily commute by trains, it will start showing its impact on the traffic congestions. Hopefully increase patronage should move the governments at both the state and center to move quickly on adding the infrastructure for full fledge suburban rail services.

Proposed Stations

1.    Hoody Station

This is located on Bangalore-Bangarpet railway line and will serve the catchment areas of ITPL, Whitefield, Mahadevpura Industrial Area. This would be of great help during the construction of Metro Phase-2.

2.    Ganabharathi Station (Bangalore University )

This is located on Bangalore-Mysore railway line and will serve the catchment areas of Mysore Road beyond Nayandahalli.

3.    Tannisandra Station near Manyatha Tech Park

This is located on Yelahanka-Byappanhalli railway line and will serve the catchment areas of  Manyatha Tech Park, Nagvara and Thanisandra.

4.    BIAL Trumpet Interchange

This is located on Yelahanka-Chikballapur railway line and will serve the passengers and workers commuting to BIAL airport. This will also serve the daily commuters in both direction of Bangalore to Chikballapur and return.